Marks for Effort

Friendship is Magic first impressions review: Marks for Effort (s08e12)
by Obake

(SPOILERS!)

I will have to watch this episode again when there is a commentary-free upload. Even so, I could tell that Marks for Effort is pretty bad. It reestablishes why the Friendship School is so flawed in execution. Twilight does not want accept the Crusaders as students, because they already know enough about friendship. The qualifications for being a student are therefore not based on age, or previous education. They are based on the assumptions that certain creatures do not know enough about friendship. It suffers the same problem as Hogwarts.* Teaching magic (or friendship) is fine and dandy, but what about things like reading, writing, math, etc?

Anyways, the Crusaders do their darnedest to get into the school by showing they do not know about friendship after all, but are unsuccessful. They are about to give up when they hear crying. Enter Cozy Glow, a Shirley Temple-esque filly who is sad that she is failing Twilight's class. The Crusaders decide to become her tutors.

Cozy preps for the final exam, and...fails on purpose. She was so grateful for the Crusaders help, that she decided to bomb the test in order to make it look like they need friendship lessons after all. Once everything is settled, Twilight gives the Crusaders honorary diplomas, and offers them a job as official tutors for students of the school. Forget the Crusaders actual studies at the Ponyville school with Cherilee. Make them spend time teaching other kids friendship lessons! Yeah, no.

My opinion may soften once I see a better upload, but the main problems will undoubtedly stay the same. Marks for Effort is not the worst episode out there, just another bleh one.

Extras:

• The classes at the Friendship School are basically Kindergarten, but with grown students. Learning to share cupcakes, watching butterflies, etc. Scootaloo complains that Cherilee never lets them play buckball inside their classroom, but it is odd because even if normal studies are boring, there is still recess, and...whatever.
• I like when Sweetie is bugging Rarity, and is called “repeatey-belle”. I also like the pony carrying the bag with the cactus, and getting repeatedly poked in the face. Given that the version I saw had talking over it, there may be other good jokes that did not land for me, because it was sometimes hard to concentrate.
• Dash does not recognize that it is Scootaloo who is wearing Groucho Marx glasses. I thought the joke would be that Dash knew all along, and just did not care, which would both fit her character, and be pretty funny. But nope, Dash is just ignorant.
• Spike makes a reference to Dead Poets Society, apparently.
• Cozy is a unique looking character, and more interesting than anything else in the episode. But she's hardly given anything to do besides whine, fail, and seemingly backstab the Crusaders. It is a shame.

*I am a fan of the Harry Potter series, but the fact that Hogwarts seemingly teaches nothing basic always bothered me.

Comments

[JimmyHook19]

•Cozy is a unique looking character, and more interesting than anything else in the episode. But she's hardly given anything to do besides whine, fail, and seemingly backstab the Crusaders. It is a shame.

Psst.... She's Queen Chrysalis in Disguise.